Koutoujian For Kongress?

Middlesex County sheriff Peter Koutoujian has tipped his hand: an eagle-eyed friend of Talking Politics alerts me that the domain name Koutoujianforcongress.com was registered over the weekend, by the sheriff's committee director and campaign manager Tsoleen Sarian.

Koutoujian lives in Waltham, which is in Ed Markey's 5th congressional district. As I wrote recently, the race to succeed Markey -- should he win the special election for US Senator -- has started early. State senators Will Brownsberger and Katherine Clark, and state representative Carl Sciortino, have all declared their candidacies. Koutoujian is among a large group known to be considering the race.

But Koutoujian has other options in front of him, including the Middlesex DA seat coming open in 2014 (with Gerry Leone opting out of re-election), or perhaps state attorney general if Martha Coakley pursues the governorship. Sarian does not appear to have registered domains relating to those positions.

That's hardly conclusive, but certainly a strong indicator of his interest

He's certainly not willing to be as definitive as Brownsberger, Clark, and Sciortino at this point. [Update: A spokesperson tells me there are no immediate plans to open a federal campaign account, as those three have.] Here's the statement he sent me in response to my inquiry about the domain name:

“My primary focus
right now is serving the people of Middlesex County as Sheriff. I love
this job and I’m continuing to implement all the reforms and other
important programs we have started.With his long history of service to citizens in our region, I am supporting and working hard for my friend, Ed Markey. I
believe it will be in the best interest of the Commonwealth for Ed
Markey to represent Massachusetts in the US Senate. If that happens, I
would consider running to serve the people of the 5th District in
Congress."